A tenet of golf technique is that the swing should be as uniform as possible with all clubs. However, conventional golf club construction has tended to promote dissimilar swings with different clubs. Conventional golf club sets comprise woods and irons with the woods typically differing significantly in construction, appearance, and playing characteristics from the irons. Woods have a much wider sole (from front to back) than irons, and are usually constructed of wood or laminated wood integrated with a metal sole plate and often an insert at the face to provide a hitting surface. Typically, weights are included in the wood construction to alter the balance of the club. Irons, on the other hand, are formed of metal and have a relatively narrow sole, typically no greater than about 1 inch, even for high loft clubs such as the sand club and pitching wedge. The club head of a wood typically has a center of gravity which is low and displaced rearwardly whereas the club head of the irons has a higher center of gravity close to the club face.
These and other differences in club construction mean that the club set is not a continuous or integrated set with regular progressions or characteristics from the driver through the 9 iron, pitching wedge, and sand club. This discontinuity of design requires the two types of clubs to be played differently so that the player must alter his swing when changing from a wood to an iron or vice versa.
Additionally, the construction characteristics of wood club heads place constraints on freedom of design from a dynamic point of view. Thus, the wood club heads are restricted in strength and weight distribution because of the shortcomings of the material. Additionally, precision in shape and loft is difficult to achieve with conventional wood material. Strength considerations also affect the face progression in the woods.
It is an object of this invention to provide a club head design which improves the playing and hitting characteristics of both woods and irons. Another object is to provide a number of clubs which together constitute a continuous set made up of clubs which vary in a substantially regular manner from the driver through the wedges and which have common design features. Another object is to provide a golf club set comprising individual clubs each of which has a wide sole normally present only in woods. Yet another object is to provide a golf club construction which leads to improved playability characteristics in that the clubs are easier to hit than conventional clubs, and balls hit with the clubs fly higher and travel straighter than balls hit with conventional clubs.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawing, and claims which follow.